Famous Proves Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Proves poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous proves poems. These examples illustrate what a famous proves poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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A Celebration

...sens and sets spinning on waxen wings— 
not the touch of a finger-tip, not the motion 
of a sigh. A too heavy sweetness proves 
its own caretaker. 
And here are the orchids! 
 Never having seen 
such gaiety I will read these flowers for you: 
This is an odd January, died—in Villon's time. 
Snow, this is and this the stain of a violet 
grew in that place the spring that foresaw its own doom. 

And this, a certain July from Iceland: 
a young woman of that place 
breathed it tow...Read more of this...
by Williams, William Carlos (WCW)


A Satyre Against Mankind

...A greater fop, in business at fourscore,
Fonder of serious toys, affected more,
Than the gay, glittering fool at twenty proves,
With all his noise, his tawdry clothes and loves.
But a meek, humble man, of honest sense,
Who preaching peace does practise continence;
Whose pious life's a proof he does believe
Mysterious truths which no man can conceive.

If upon Earth there dwell such god-like men,
I'll here recant my paradox to them,
Adores those shrines of virtue, homage pay,
...Read more of this...
by Wilmot, John

Absalom And Achitophel

...emain'd,
While David, undisturb'd, in Sion reign'd.
But life can never be sincerely blest:
Heav'n punishes the bad, and proves the best.
The Jews, a headstrong, moody, murm'ring race,
As ever tri'd th'extent and stretch of grace;
God's pamper'd people whom, debauch'd with ease,
No king could govern, nor no God could please;
(Gods they had tri'd of every shape and size,
That god-smiths could produce, or priests devise:)
These Adam-wits, too fortunately free,
Began to dream the...Read more of this...
by Dryden, John

An Essay On Criticism

...no more Survey,
All glares alike, without Distinction gay:
But true Expression, like th' unchanging Sun,
Clears, and improves whate'er it shines upon,
It gilds all Objects, but it alters none.
Expression is the Dress of Thought, and still
Appears more decent as more suitable;
A vile Conceit in pompous Words exprest,
Is like a Clown in regal Purple drest;
For diff'rent Styles with diff'rent Subjects sort,
As several Garbs with Country, Town, and Court.
Some by Old Words to Fa...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

Bishop Blougrams Apology

...me but the merest chance 
Doubt may be wrong--there's judgment, life to come! 
With just that chance, I dare not. Doubt proves right? 
This present life is all?--you offer me 
Its dozen noisy years, without a chance 
That wedding an archduchess, wearing lace, 
And getting called by divers new-coined names, 
Will drive off ugly thoughts and let me dine, 
Sleep, read and chat in quiet as I like! 
Therefore I will not. 

Take another case; 
Fit up the cabin yet another way. 
Wha...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert


Cleon

...be not one with him-- 
I know not, nor am troubled much to know. 
Thou canst not think a mere barbarian Jew, 
As Paulus proves to be, one circumcised, 
Hath access to a secret shut from us? 
Thou wrongest our philosophy, O king, 
In stooping to inquire of such an one, 
As if his answer could impose at all! 
He writeth, doth he? well, and he may write. 
Oh, the Jew findeth scholars! certain slaves 
Who touched on this same isle, preached him and Christ; 
And (as I gathered fro...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Gratitude -- is not the mention

...Of a Tenderness,
But its still appreciation
Out of Plumb of Speech.

When the Sea return no Answer
By the Line and Lead
Proves it there's no Sea, or rather
A remoter Bed?...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

Holy Sonnet XIV: Batter My Heart Three Person'd God

...ther due,
Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy:
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me....Read more of this...
by Donne, John

Marriage

...rkeneth her countenance
as a bear doth,
causing her husband to sigh,"
the spiked hand
that has an affection for one
and proves it to the bone,
impatient to assure you
that impatience is the mark of independence
not of bondage.
"Married people often look that way" --
"seldom and cold, up and down,
mixed and malarial
with a good day and bad."
"When do we feed?"
We occidentals are so unemotional,
we quarrel as we feed;
one's self is quite lost,
the irony preserved
in "the Ahasue...Read more of this...
by Moore, Marianne

May

...s the grain
They start the young girls joys afloat
Wi 'wet my foot' its yearly note
So fancy doth the sound explain
And proves it oft a sign of rain
About the moor 'mong sheep and cow
The boy or old man wanders now
Hunting all day wi hopful pace
Each thick sown rushy thistly place
For plover eggs while oer them flye
The fearful birds wi teazing cry
Trying to lead their steps astray
And coying him another way
And be the weather chill or warm
Wi brown hats truckd beneath his ar...Read more of this...
by Clare, John

My face is so pretty

...My face is so pretty; you don't see a scar, 
Which proves I'm the king of the ring by far....Read more of this...
by Ali, Muhammad

Samson Agonistes

...ighest dispensation, which herein
Happ'ly had ends above my reach to know:
Suffices that to me strength is my bane,
And proves the sourse of all my miseries;
So many, and so huge, that each apart
Would ask a life to wail, but chief of all,
O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O worse then chains,
Dungeon, or beggery, or decrepit age!
Light the prime work of God to me is extinct,
And all her various objects of delight
Annull'd, which might in part my ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Song of Myself

...e than a touch?) 

Logic and sermons never convince;
The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul. 

Only what proves itself to every man and woman is so; 
Only what nobody denies is so. 

A minute and a drop of me settle my brain; 
I believe the soggy clods shall become lovers and lamps,
And a compend of compends is the meat of a man or woman, 
And a summit and flower there is the feeling they have for each other, 
And they are to branch boundlessly out of th...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Artists

...y bosom, and through reason free,--
Master of Nature, who thy fetters loves,
And who thy strength in thousand conflicts proves,
And from the desert soared in pride with thee!

Flushed with the glow of victory,
Never forget to prize the hand
That found the weeping orphan child
Deserted on life's barren strand,
And left a prey to hazard wild,--
That, ere thy spirit-honor saw the day,
Thy youthful heart watched over silently,
And from thy tender bosom turned away
Each thought th...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

The Comedian As The Letter C

...he fluster from the year, 
569 Making gulped potions from obstreperous drops, 
570 And so distorting, proving what he proves 
571 Is nothing, what can all this matter since 
572 The relation comes, benignly, to its end? 

573 So may the relation of each man be clipped....Read more of this...
by Stevens, Wallace

The Flight Of The Duchess

...ts tatters hung loose like sedges,
Gold coins were glittering on the edges,
Like the band-roll strung with tomans
Which proves the veil a Persian woman's.
And under her brow, like a snail's horns newly
Come out as after the rain he paces,
Two unmistakeable eye-points duly
Live and aware looked out of their places.
So, we went and found Jacynth at the entry
Of the lady's chamber standing sentry;
I told the command and produced my companion,
And Jacynth rejoiced to admit any on...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

The Phases Of The Moon

...or water-hen
Splashed, or an otter slid into the stream.
We are on the bridge; that shadow is the tower,
And the light proves that he is reading still.
He has found, after the manner of his kind,
Mere images; chosen this place to live in
Because, it may be, of the candle-light
From the far tower where Milton's Platonist
Sat late, or Shelley's visionary prince:
The lonely light that Samuel Palmer engraved,
An image of mysterious wisdom won by toil;
And now he seeks in book or...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler

The Princess (part 2)

...liment. 
Your flight from out your bookless wilds would seem 
As arguing love of knowledge and of power; 
Your language proves you still the child. Indeed, 
We dream not of him: when we set our hand 
To this great work, we purposed with ourself 
Never to wed. You likewise will do well, 
Ladies, in entering here, to cast and fling 
The tricks, which make us toys of men, that so, 
Some future time, if so indeed you will, 
You may with those self-styled our lords ally 
Your fort...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Rape of the Lock

...manly Leg, to sight reveal'd;
The rest his many-colour'd Robe conceal'd.
The Rebel-Knave, who dares his Prince engage,
Proves the just Victim of his Royal Rage. 
Ev'n mighty Pam that Kings and Queens o'erthrow,
And mow'd down Armies in the Fights of Lu,
Sad Chance of War! now, destitute of Aid,
Falls undistinguish'd by the Victor Spade.

Thus far both Armies to Belinda yield;
Now to the Baron Fate inclines the Field.
His warlike Amazon her Host invades,
Th' Imperial Consort ...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

The Walk

...
But in his silent chamber the thoughtful sage is projecting
Magical circles, and steals e'en on the spirit that forms,
Proves the force of matter, the hatreds and loves of the magnet,
Follows the tune through the air, follows through ether the ray,
Seeks the familiar law in chance's miracles dreaded,
Looks for the ne'er-changing pole in the phenomena's flight.
Bodies and voices are lent by writing to thought ever silent,
Over the centuries' stream bears it the eloquent page....Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

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